Minister-designate for Communications, Digital Technology, and Innovation, Sam Nartey George, during his vetting, announced the government’s plans to undertake a fresh SIM card re-registration exercise.

This move, he explained, aims to address the shortcomings of the previous registration process.

Providing further clarity, Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, revealed that the earlier exercise was not fully completed, necessitating a more comprehensive approach.

Sam George criticised the earlier process for its inefficiencies and pledged that the new registration would be streamlined, technology-driven, and user-friendly, eliminating the long queues that plagued the 2022 exercise.

In the 2022 exercise, SIM cardholders were required to link their numbers to their Ghana Cards, but the process faced significant challenges, including delays and SIM deactivations for non-compliance.

George assured that the upcoming re-registration is designed to enhance security and improve the reliability of Ghana’s telecommunications infrastructure, ultimately serving the best interests of all Ghanaians.

“We will do a proper SIM re-registration again, and this time, there will be no queues because common sense will prevail, and we will use technology to do it,” he assured.

Responding to the announcement in an interview with Citi FM, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey said the previous exercise was incomplete.

“I wouldn’t say it is useless. I would say it was incomplete. The thing about it is the fact that the biometric data that was collected was not reading properly.”

He pointed out that the fingerprint data was not captured as accurately as the NIA’s system, stressing the importance of using the NIA database as the “single point of truth.”

“What we should have done was use the NIA database to complete the cycle,” Ashigbey noted.

He explained that while the initial phase of SIM registration verified data against the NIA database, the second phase—biometric verification—was flawed.

“We do the liveliness test, we do the likeliness test, we collect the biometric data, but we don’t compare it with the single point of truth, which is the NIA database,” he stated.

He emphasized the need to correct this gap to ensure the new registration process is comprehensive and effective.